


hands up to reach the stars

by trailingviolets



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Force Awakens - Fandom, The Last Jedi
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Hate to Love, Minor Poe Dameron/Finn, Oneshot, Roommates, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 13:33:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13295949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trailingviolets/pseuds/trailingviolets
Summary: Law School/Roommates AU





	hands up to reach the stars

 

**** Thursday, August 31st, 3:42pm

  
“You ready to go in?” Skywalker grips her shoulder reassuringly. Rey is unable to read any of her own anxiety in his smile. It’s full of a rakish optimism that makes him easily as handsome as Dr. Solo.

  
“Yeah. Let’s roll.” Rey is immediately hit with a sense of malevolent energy, foreboding, and underneath it, a bizarre undercurrent of selfish, unwelcome emotion.

  
“Whoa,” Rey says. “I’m getting major Death Eater vibes here.”

  
“That would be my naughty nephew. He couldn’t have driven more of a stake through his mother’s heart if he had joined the party in the twenties,” Lucas answers.  
“Although technically he’s still not a member of the alt-right elite.”

  
“He works for Snoke.” As if that even begins to summarize the manifold reasons why Kylo Ren is already shaping up to be an asshole. “That’s enough for me.”

  
Luc hesitates at the door.“You know, Uncle Skywalker isn’t exactly welcome in this abode.” Rey looks askance at him. They had pre-agreed that he would escort her back to the hostel.

  
“You go ahead,” he responds. “I’ll be here when you’re ready to scram.”

  
“Chicken,” Rey chides under her breath. Alone she crosses the threshold of Kylo’s apartment. When Rey shuts the door behind her, the interior grows darker than the backs of her eyelids.

  
When she switches on the light, it becomes clear that an intense quality of craftsmanship was spent on the space, although the theme must have been black. The countertops glitter in a cold, unsullied way that Rey had yet to see outside of a catalog. Even the Chucks sitting in the breezeway have spray-painted dark soles.

  
“Hello?” Rey calls, tentative. She listens closely, but little response comes. With all her instinct, Rey suffers the impulse to turn around and dash into Luc’s arms.

  
The rental agreement specified her bedroom would be the first on the left. There are only two, but of course hers is the one with the closed door.

  
Rey knocks for manners sake, though she can only assume that sort of consideration won’t be of much currency here.

  
“Come in! Look what I’ve got for you.” Kylo’s sharp baritone addresses Rey from behind the canopy of an oversized swastika flag. Its mock cheer plays tricks on her heart.

  
Trapped in the least pulled-together nightmare of her life, Rey faints unceremoniously forward into the cloying dark.

  
**** Thursday, August 31st, 3:54pm

  
“Put me down,” she orders immediately.

  
The room spins madly around her, too fast for Rey to risk opening her eyes. Her only sense is of his sweaty grasp. Rey runs through her head, recapping. She thinks of the brand new Nazi flag straight out of its protective plastic.

  
“Put me down!” she says then with greater authority.

  
Kylo dumps her like so much laundry onto the bed. There Rey recuperates. Legs curled to her chest, she wills the dizziness and strange mind-fuzz of the apartment away. Eventually she is able to crack her eyelids.

  
“Why did you get me that?” She gestures to the flag.

  
“You’re my guest.” An unbidden shiver climbs up Rey’s spine. Kylo’s serious.

  
“How long was I out?”

  
“About ten seconds. You’ll be happy to know your fit didn’t require me to call for Skywalker. Wouldn’t want to leave a poor impression.” Kylo reaches for her, as if to tuck the hair back into her bun.

  
“I asked you not to touch me,” Rey grits out, a warning and a promise.

“You’re still acting like I offended you.”

  
“That’s what happens when you’re surprised by a creep with a swastika flag.” The words come out harsher than she intended, but it gets Rey’s point across.

  
“Open your eyes,” is his response, unfazed. Rey does.

  
Kneeling at her feet is the tall man from Leia’s Facebook pictures. Readily obvious is that he’s a scant few years her senior, a born politician, and deeply unhappy. She takes issue with what his eyes are doing to the buttons of her shirt. He points to a glass of water on the nightstand. Rey warily shakes her head.

  
“Tell me about yourself,” he prompts, without further introduction.

  
“I’m a law student from Arizona. I’m receiving a scholarship to teach at DeForce University while I finish my degree.”

  
“So you did convince Organa to let you join as an adjunct. How’d you do it? You, a nobody from the desert.” He pauses, licking his lips. “You know I can read you like a book?”

  
Kylo Ren stares unnervingly into her averted face. Rey tastes blood.

  
“It was so lonely in Arizona, and yet you were so scared to leave. You’re desperate to fit in here. Are you doing enough? Will they like you? At night you can’t sleep for fear. But you’ve gotten ahead by making powerful friends. First Organa, then Skywalker. Even Solo takes an interest in you.”

  
Rey shakes from the physical effort of maintaining as much composure as she can. He deserves a desert ass-kicking for this creepy shit.

  
“Oh, poor girl. Han Solo is like the father you never had,” Kylo says. With renewed vigor, he abandons his stare down her shirt and snaps, “He would have disappointed you!” in a tone reserved for blind rage.

  
That’s what sends Rey over the edge.

  
“Get out of my head and get the  _fuck_  away from me!” she hisses at him, emboldened by the brief work of hurt on Kylo’s face. “And here I thought they were overreacting about you.”

  
“So you have heard stories about me. What do you know? Tell me!” Rey resists the eyes boring into her, cataloging every move and twitch of light. Rey concentrates firmly on the indefinite black of the wall over his shoulder. Stubbornness seems to only push Kylo, but ignoring him is what really does the trick. Rey stows that knowledge away.

  
It’s not two seconds before he changes tactics in frustration.

  
“Don’t be afraid,” he says cryptically, “I feel it too.” He’s curious for more than just answers; he wants her. Rey channels the absurd surge of disgust this provokes in her, and powers it directly towards telling him off.

  
“I’m not letting you interrogate me,” she answers. “Besides, you already know everything I could possibly say.” Rey smiles, ceasing in her struggle to turn away. Drawn unnervingly close, Kylo itches to shift or blink her out of sight. Rey pounces on the split-second hesitation in his eyes.

  
“You’ve heard them whispering. The hate, the ridicule. It’s everyone’s favorite joke. And you? You’re afraid.” Kylo’s chin wavers. She watches the freckles pop on his face as he stares transfixed at her. In a tragic way that makes her teeth ache, Rey wishes futilely for it to be different between them.

  
“You’re afraid that you will never be as great as President Vader.”

  
Kylo backs away from her, wounded. The uncertainty in his dark eyes is luminous. Rey is reminded that self-doubt is Kylo’s own personal inroad to hell.

  
Cheerfully she stands, puts out her hand, and wills Kylo to try her crushing grip as he tried manipulating her mind.

  
“Thanks for having me,” Rey says. “I think I’ve seen enough.”

 

**** Friday, September 1st, 9:20am

  
“This  _is_  all my stuff,” Rey tells Dr. Skywalker as she carts her busted-wheel suitcase from the elevator.

  
“Seriously?” Lucas asks.

  
“Yup,” she answers.

  
“A girl after my own heart. I didn’t have shit when I got to this town either.”

  
“But your father was President Vader.”

  
“Phtt. ‘My father.’ I was adopted by a couple in Tacoma when I was born. That’s why Sis and I have different last names. We met when we were your age, give or take. Nobody even really knew the name Skywalker, except in the alt-right inner sanctum. After Mom died, he just went by Vader.”

“I’m sorry,” Rey says quickly.

“Nah, I loved my folks. They gave me the world. I just wish they could’ve been around to see me succeed. And Sis. They got a kick out of Leia.”

  
Rey attempts to conjure an image of the General as a girl. It seems so improbable. Luc smiles like he knows what she’s thinking.

  
“Alright, this is where I leave you. If he gives you hell, call me. And if you need a place to sleep, and you just don’t want to talk about it, here’s the key to my office.” Dr. Skywalker places a tree-shaped crest of metal in her hand. The third branch is the part that fits into the lock.

  
“Luc, thank you. Your whole family has been so kind.”

  
“Except the dork in there, right?” Luc studies the floor for a beat, and when he looks up, Rey recognizes the gleam in his eyes. “We all have a debt to pay in you,” he says finally.

  
They part with a suffocating hug. Rey fumbles the tree key into the pocket of her jeans, but once Luc is out of sight, her resolve wavers.

  
She considers running from the building, hopping one of the rust-colored freight liners she noticed on the train from the airport. Before any scavenger thinks to flip her camper for parts. Before her parents come back, only to find her gone. She can go home.

  
Rey turns around, slamming the door to Kylo’s apartment. She decides to wait in the hall so she doesn’t run into Luc on his way back to the university.  
She sinks cross-legged to the carpet and for several minutes the wheels turn furiously in her head.

  
There’s nothing but a stoop-backed old lady in the distance breaking the monotony. After a while Rey drifts back to herself. She has no idea how long it’s been. At this point she’s clearly stalling.

  
The old woman has dusted her way to Kylo’s door. A pair of coke-bottle glasses surveys Rey. It’s then that she senses the energy surrounding the pair of them.  
“What lovely eyes you have, my dear. I feel as if I know them from somewhere.”

  
“Thanks,” Rey whispers.

  
“It’s not uncommon. We women have so many lives, you know.”

  
“You’re telling me,” she says weakly.

  
“It’s a pity some lives are impossible to keep. We don’t always have a choice. But you’ve already learned that, I see. The trick is not giving up. And remembering, our belonging isn’t to the past. It’s to whatever lies ahead.”

  
“Have we met?” Rey asks. Even more baffling than the woman’s insight is the fact that they are total strangers. The old lady only grins as she pushes the button to call the elevator.

  
“You can call me Kanata, dear,” she says at last, leaving Rey alone in the hall.

  
She stands on shaky legs. Her hand is on the doorknob before she can reconsider. Rey knows it's entirely up to her to step into the future, after coming all this way.

  
“Hello!” Rey hollers into the dark, and this time she’s ready for a response.

  
**** Monday, November 6th, 9:25am

  
“Before you go being too afraid of my son, I think you should know the truth.” The General speaks as she fills her mug from the coffee pot in the faculty lounge.

Absently, Leia abandons it on the counter to continue walking with Rey.

  
“Dr. O, that’s sweet of you. I just don’t think it’s going to change my mind. He’s a total psychopath.”

  
“These days, yes. I should take some of the responsibility, I raised the fool,” Leia sighs. “But I also didn’t raise him, and I have a feeling that’s why he’s the way he is. Solo and I weren’t much in the picture. Believe it or not, Ben wasn’t always this awful.”

  
“Oh.” Rey looks away, caught under a wave of secondhand embarrassment. She knows Kylo resents this particular mode of heart to heart the most. Leia is as unsparing in her range as any other single mother. “Is that why he behaves like a bratty ten year old? Arrested development?” Dr. Organa pales.

  
“Not quite. Listen, Reyna. Ben’s whole Nazi mojo? You have to know by now that it’s just an act. The tantrums are the only real part of it.”

  
Rey’s mind strays to Finn and the uncomfortable, vaguely-formed jealousy she’s felt from Kylo lately.

  
“He’s a conflicted mess,” Leia continues, “And he’s gotta mask it with some sort of bravado. In the alt-right movement, image is everything. If he didn’t keep up appearances he would be eaten alive by the truly evil people who know our name. So he plays the part.” Rey likes Leia’s explanation. But even if it holds water, there’s still the insecure subtext of him that just doesn’t fit.

  
“I’m sorry, but you’re not going to convince me that Kylo’s some New Age tragic anti-hero. He already tried.” Rey rolls her eyes in mocking.

  
Dr. Organa pushes her spectacles to her forehead, wedging them into the enormous greying buns over each ear. Rey thinks there might be the hint of a smile on her lips as she speaks.

  
“Not by any stretch of the imagination, sweetheart, would anyone fall for that. He’s just trying to get a rise out of you. And for Ben, the alt-right is a last resort. After he left Dr. Skywalker’s academy, he was more or less forbidden from the Democratic coalition meetings.”

  
“What did he do?” As she speaks, Rey feels an errant rush of pity for him that she shoves aside to make room for frustration.

  
“He proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was a danger to himself and others. His episode with my brother was just the last straw in a self-destructive path he’d been on for quite some time. Afterwards, we came to the collective agreement that he has no business in government.”

  
“And yet that’s exactly what he is, except now with Snoke.”

  
“Truth be told, Snoke had his eye on Ben since the fifth grade.” Leia times perfectly the moment that they turn the corner into her office. Rather than rounding the desk to sit, she joins Rey on the couch. Frowning, Dr. Organa places a hand over Rey’s, matched on the dark leather.

  
“I’m sure you know by now that he was a problem child. Blame it on his father and I, blame it on life. Ben had a temper from the get-go that kept him from making friends. He used to cry himself to sleep at night, only to wake the nanny with screaming nightmares. He wet the bed until junior high. We couldn’t keep a tutor to homeschool him.

  
At the Academy, his nose was broken by the same bully twice, but because none of the other kids would come forward and say who it was, Skywalker was powerless to do anything to stop it. He attempted suicide at least once, that I know of. By the time he threatened my brother, we were all ready for him to leave,” Leia confesses.

  
“Snoke and Ben met at an outreach event. He was still traveling with the Academy then. You’ve heard the rumors about Snoke’s...proclivities.” Rey nods. It’s not as big a secret as it should be.

  
“You think he did something to Kylo, to make him turn?”

  
“I don’t think so. Not in the way that comes to mind. The Senator thrives on manipulation, that’s how he built his empire. If anything, he goaded Ben to leave the Academy, and then offered him an internship when he had nowhere to go.”

  
Now it’s Rey’s turn to sigh.

  
“Why did you think it would be a good idea for us to live together, with all this going on?” Leia’s eyes meet Rey’s, clear and earnest. She winks before giving her answer.

  
“Because you are the daughter all of us over-the-hill politicians wish we had. You’re an excellent professor, and you show a uniquely strong natural talent towards civil law. We hoped you might rub off on him.” Surprised by her words of praise, Rey laughs.

  
“I’ll try. If we don’t become enemies first.”

  
“Speaking from experience, you will meet far more formidable adversaries on your journey. Ben squandered his chance at success to what you see today. Don’t waste your time worrying what he thinks of you, because that is the surest way to fail in the same way. He must be making money from this internship, but it’s not even remotely in his field. I see the misery written on his face. As painful as it is to see, I let that give me hope for him.”

  
“So you believe he’ll change his mind?” Dr. O nods.

  
“Rather, I believe his mind can be changed. The long and short of it is that you don’t answer to Ben. Don’t let him trick you into thinking that’s how it goes. You are a Presidential scholar relocated into temporary housing because of extenuating family circumstances. You are not a charity case. To say any more would be unbecoming, and frankly, to say any less would be selling you short.”

  
Rey swells with a gratitude that is only dimmed by the specter of her and Kylo’s similarities.

  
“And what if I ever want to join the alt-right?” she asks. “It’s happened before to one of our own.”

  
“If you start feel that way, tell me. Skywalker and I can help you resist Snoke in ways that we couldn’t with Ben.” Dr. Organa taps her fingers twice to Rey’s cheek, the gesture fond. “But I already know there's just too much light in you for them to touch.”

  
“Thanks, Professor.”

  
At the door, she crowds Rey in a vice-like hug. All doubt feels like it is being squeezed from her by force.

  
“No, thank you,” Leia huffs out at last.

  
**** Monday, November 6th, 6:48pm

  
Kylo comes home late from his internship, sporting an unusually dark mood like a badge of honor. His temper flares from bad to worse when he catches scent of the heavy smoke that lingers on Rey’s backpack from Finn’s dorm. Without further ado, he stalks into the kitchen to berate her.

  
“I’m sick of the constant ramen. It’s fucking depressing.”

  
“You’re not the one who has to eat it every night. Imagine. And unless you have a better idea, this is what fits the budget.” Rey rescues her Tapatio from its segregated corner of the fridge, leveling her gaze at him.

  
“Maybe you should get a job. Make some money instead of freeloading off of financial aid. And don’t get that Mexican shit on my counter.” He’s cleary just baiting her now.

  
“I already have a job. Speaking of, Dr. O. and I spoke this afternoon.” Kylo’s smugness drains considerably. Rey douses her noodles to death in hot sauce with a cathartic aggression.

  
“And pray tell, what did she say? Did you go crying to her about me?” Kylo looms over her now, seething. If he wasn’t so rude, Rey might pity his tortured vibe of no-sleep and zero-nutrition that only seems to crescendo the longer she knows him.

  
“She reiterated that because you’re still flunking Jurisprudence on your third try it was especially lucky that I decided to let you into my remediation seminar this semester.”

  
“You bitch,” Kylo hisses. Rey loses her appetite mid-bite. She sets down her fork with little flourish and no small menace, winging moisture across the tile backsplash.

  
“Don’t you ever call me that again,” she warns. “It’s not my fault you’re so out of depth at your internship that it’s consuming you. Tell me, Kylo, has the Senator made a pass at you yet? I hear he likes little boys who wet the bed.”

Kylo’s lack of response registers as worse than his fury.

  
In the same moment Rey opens her mouth to apologize, Kylo bellows,“Shut the fuck up!” in an embarrassed falsetto. Fear of what will come next silences Rey, though they remain inches apart.

“You fucking nuisance!” Kylo snaps. “Have they gotten it into your head that you’re worthy of something? Because you’re not. You’re nothing.”

  
“You and I know that’s not true.” Rey speaks as calmly as her pride will allow. For once she almost dares to hope that the next words out of his mouth will be conciliatory.

  
“Wouldn’t you prefer to be nothing? It’s a bit of a step up from orphan trailer trash.”

  
Rey moves so abruptly that there’s no time to enjoy the crack of her hand against his face. She strikes hard enough that Kylo’s eyes well. The grief of the gesture is undeniable, but Kylo’s expression is confusingly one of a greater hurt than hers.

  
Rey knows intellectually that there are emotions roiling in him far more complex than hate. Even so, Rey understands that as her faith in him evaporates, so does her impulse to see him as anything other than two-dimensional. The premise that Kylo exists in a self-imposed exile of loneliness is no longer compelling enough reason to keep trying to break through.

  
“I’m leaving,” Rey announces. She’s busy cramming her feet into a pair of Doc Martens when he comes to stand beside her. “Don’t you _dare_ lock me out.”

  
Kylo waits, gravely still, and watches without response as Rey slams out into the relative calm of the hall.

  
**** Monday, November 6th, 10:18pm

  
The rain picks up as soon as Rey is too far down the street from the Starbucks to turn back. It threads between the oak trees of the block at a driving slant, at first just a pattering on the metal of the passing cars, then harder until it’s everywhere. Rey catches again the almost-familiar sweet smell of decay that she associates with un-raked leaves.

  
Shuffling from foot to foot at the crosswalk, Rey stares impatiently at the cityscape. The light drains from the facades of the skyscrapers when it pours. Tonight its glow is left to drift as a body of dimness in the fog. Rey studies the scene for a moment longer than necessary. It feels inexplicably close to memory. When the signal changes, she gratefully steps out into the street, and the moment ends.

  
As soon as she walks in, Rey braces for a confrontation. She only bothers to discard her soaked jacket over the velvet chair that sits in front of the door. The lanyard stays put around her neck.

  
Rey enters the kitchen, caution in every move. The telltale aura of Ren’s Kindle emanates from under his bedroom door. She focuses on not disturbing him as she surveys the kitchen for damage.

  
On the counter sits a fist-sized jar with a gingham top. A silver spoon balances precariously on the lid. It definitely wasn’t present for their fight, and it isn’t very characteristic of the destruction Kylo usually leaves in his wake.

  
Rey turns the jar in her hand, and a new bittersweet heaviness lodges itself in her throat. A whisper of thought wakes her up.

  
_I love apple butter!_

  
Rey wants to doubt the small voice inside her that isn’t quite her own. The puzzling absence of malevolent energy she feels is confounding enough. She double checks the area. Again, there’s no broken mosaic of china waiting in the dishwasher, no kicked-over plants on the balcony.

  
Maybe Kylo accidentally received the pretend voicemail Finn left after her tearful explanation of the episode. In spite of her wretchedness, Rey managed to laugh at the invective. Again, her logic falters. Finn’s phone ran out of battery half an hour before they met up. They had a hard time finding each other in the crowd.

  
She circles back to the counter, unlacing her boots. Whatever the case, it appears that she’s safe for now. The relief of this relaxes Rey’s jaw, solves the headache that was nagging between her eyes. She wasn’t even certain she would be allowed back through the door.

  
The jar and spoon rattle in her pocket as Rey carefully slides open the balcony glass. The rain is much more picturesque from under the shelter of the speckled cement roof, and Rey sinks backwards into her favorite deckchair.

  
Longing for Topawa fills Rey’s chest for the umpteenth time since clashing with Kylo. She was a different person in the desert. She never let her temper get the best of her, always catching it easily before it spiralled into violence. Even when there was the most to be angry about during the darkest times.

  
In the joy of reaching D.C., she actively sought to forget the placid monotony of the desert. But it was the balm that healed her first weeks in the city, when all she did was disappoint herself with backward thoughts and hopes. Eventually Rey learned to miss nights spent on her camper bed under a broken string of child-like paper stars.

  
Because now and every second it is more real that she’s journeyed from that place forever, and there’s no going back.

  
Rey plucks the jar of apple butter from her pocket. She quietly savors the homemade tang of it, happy not to be settling for store-bought. It was hardest to find in Arizona.

  
The baffling gift creates a troubling and unwanted desire to make amends to Kylo over what she’s done, but Rey knows the feeling will keep. It’s enough just to sleep at home for the night.

 

**** Tuesday, November 7th, 5:52pm

  
“What’s so distracting to you today, Ren?” Thankfully the Senator is in a merciful mood. Kylo doesn’t even attempt to disguise the fact that he’s lost in thought.

  
“Nothing, sir. I have a migraine.” Kylo bows his head further, balancing just short of the place where the carpet meets Snoke’s massive oak desk.

  
“Again? Always the weakling,” but Snoke relents, and motions for Kylo to sit back on his legs. “Fine, rest. You’re no use to me if you can’t even carry a tray of coffee without incident.” Kylo longs to cradle the throbbing arm that’s all but lost sensation behind his back. Despite repeatedly rinsing the boiling coffee from his wound, the pain has yet to lessen.

  
Yet the Senator routinely delivers him much stronger punishments for his failings. Even the hair-ripping yank Kylo received at the beginning of the conversation has faded. It worries Kylo as to the severity of the burn, and sends his head swimming anew.

  
“Thank you, sir,” Kylo says automatically.

“Go home, sleep it off. But don’t forget that next time, I won’t be so understanding. You’re dismissed.”

  
“Thank you,” he repeats. Kylo crawls backwards from the Senator’s grasping embrace with overwhelming relief. “I won’t forget, sir.”

  
Kylo allows himself to stand over the men’s toilet and retch for exactly three minutes before forcing his feet out of the stall. The mirror shows him a sallow, sour-faced man with an unspeakably large nose.

  
The matted evidence of Snoke’s desiccated grasp shows in his hair, and Kylo appears almost sick. No thanks to the renewed bout of photosensitivity he fights as he watches his reflection.

  
On the way home, his dread turns to outright fear. Kylo exists hyper-aware of the brittleness of his position, and understands perhaps better than anyone that he won’t be able to sustain any greater pressure without being torn apart by the hundreds waiting to fill his internship.

  
Even when offered a permanent position with Snoke, Kylo expects to be forced to withdraw from the university before he can be expelled. Kylo reminds himself that he won’t have much use for his degree in the Senator’s service anyways. There he has faith he will excel, however hard-pressed he may be to survive.

  
In Snoke’s swift-rising political reality, misery is the only necessary mode of operation. Lucky for Kylo, his unhappiness stretches far enough to sustain any number of assaults.

 

**** Tuesday, November 7th, 6:12pm

  
“Why is it that when I come home every fucking light has to be on in the house?” It’s a spare twenty four hours later since their fight. When he enters the kitchen, Kylo exposes a bone-deep stress visible around his eyes in thick creases of unease.

  
“We have seminar tomorrow. I need to see to workshop my lesson. Besides, I like the light.”

  
“The dark is better for thinking,” Kylo replies, “and you look even scrawnier than normal in the light. Don’t flatter yourself that it’s your thing.”

  
At this Rey ventures a closer glance at him. There’s a scrubbed-out coffee stain on his shirt cuff, and an inexplicable stipple of bubbling skin beneath it.

  
“Did you hurt yourself?” Rey points to the injury, shutting her textbook. Kylo immediately covers the offending arm from view. In his face is the panic of a kicked animal.

“What’s it to you?” Kylo asks, mocking, but there’s no venom in it. He wavers, appearing uncharacteristically small.

  
“Alright, suit yourself.” Rey’s too comfortable on the couch to consider starting an argument that might make her want to storm out. “But I do know a thing or two about second degree burns. I practically raised myself on aloe vera. In the desert, a nice one like that takes weeks to heal.”

  
“What do you mean you raised yourself?” Kylo’s expression is unreadable, despite the unseemly sincerity of the question. Rey thinks that now might be her turn to go on the defensive.

  
“It’s a long story.” Rey takes pains not to sound too bitter. “It’s a wonder I’m not scrawnier.” For an impossible second, Kylo looks as though he’s gearing up to say something flattering in her defense.

  
Instead he executes a cupboard slam that makes Rey jump, and the ambiguous energy of the room dissipates.

  
“Whatever. That’s not what I meant,” he says.

  
“I doubt it,” Rey replies, letting her voice carry a bite she neither feels nor cares for him to be wounded by. The image of a dark-haired, unremarkably gawky boy shrinking into the corner of an otherwise-happy picture comes to the forefront of Rey’s mind. It’s a beat before she recognizes the image from the picture kept in Dr. Organa’s second desk drawer, under a half-empty bottle of ‘92 whiskey. Momentarily, Rey feels for his situation as only a friend could.

  
With no further argument, Kylo shuffles towards his room, borrowing her filched copy of the Washington Post from the coffee table on his way past.

  
“Ben?” She’s not sure if he’ll answer to the name, or even if it will go so far as to provoke a shouting match between them, but Kylo halts halfway down the hall. He’s clearly listening.

  
“We’re having a pop quiz tomorrow. The questions are on page 258.” Rey pauses, weighing her options. The high road seems more appropriate now than it did just minutes before. She thinks again of the jar on the corner of the counter, of teenage Ben, and continues with more resolve. “I’ll ask you to answer number four out loud. It’s not a trick question.” Rey waits.

  
“Noted,” Kylo says softly. Without even turning his head, he communicates to her a wave of gratitude. For the first time, he gently closes the bedroom door behind him when he goes.

  
**** Wednesday, November 8th, 8:01am

  
“Alright, folks,” Rey addresses the seminar. “Let’s get this suck-ass Wednesday started.” Rey beams at a sea of hungover, distracted faces. The hilarity of teaching remediation floods her with spirit.

  
“Lucky for you, I brought donuts,” Rey leaves herself a dramatic pause that makes her TA in the back snort. “And coffee. Just because you’re all so sorry-looking.” Rey takes a deep breath, waiting. Miraculously, the energy in the room shifts. People start paying attention to the sound of her voice.

  
“Okay, here’s how this is gonna go. We are taking an oral quiz today on legal positivism. I know, I know. Fortunately, I’m giving you ten minutes to check the reading and get yourself together. Feel free to talk about it with your neighbor. Phone a friend if you have to. Just try your best not to fail. And the time doesn’t start now, relax. We’ll get there. Right now, we’re gonna have breakfast.”

  
Boxes of donuts and piled napkins circulate the room, as well as the unwieldy cardboard vat of coffee Rey splurged on at checkout not half an hour before class. Last minute, she secured a carton of creamer that her TA may or may not have lifted from Dr. O’s fridge, and enough artificial sugar to create an anthrax scare on the Senate floor.

  
As a general rule, Rey tries not to keep too obvious of an eye on what Kylo is doing during class. It usually comes easy to her, given how thoroughly he manages to piss her off every night. Still, it’s clear he doesn’t belong in remediation as much as the others that claim her attention. She would call his a willful ignorance.

  
It’s a sparse group that they’ve placed her in charge of, so of course Rey notices when Kylo tentatively accepts a donut from a box that is offered to him by a brave 1L. Rey quickly turns to her TA, a Guatemalan freedom fighter, who weaves his way to the front of the classroom once he smells the coffee being poured.

  
“Yo, Poe,” she says.

  
“Hey, teach. Here’s yours,” he says, and sets a donut on her desk in passing. Rey shrinks an inch or two in her seat, but accepts the gesture with a warm smile.

A single coconut donut, a lidless black coffee, and two packets of raw sugar on the side. The spread on her desk now mirrors Kylo’s exactly.

  
What’s worse is that Rey knows without a second glance that no one else in the room has taken a coconut donut.

  
As the group eats, Rey mentally berates herself for caring whether she is or is not like him and in what ways. Sighing, Rey tries her damndest to find the mythical inner zen that will allow her to resume the rest of the morning, which was going great until her roommate showed up.

  
“Alright, everyone good? Okay. Your ten minutes start now.” Self-assured as ever, Kylo doesn’t even crack his book, and instead continues to wolf down his breakfast with an inspiring ferocity.

  
In the complicated intimacy of roommates, Rey has only witnessed Kylo putting caffeine pills and Perrier into his body. The unfamiliar expression of hunger on his face brings an absent smile to hers, before Rey snaps out of it and briefly wonders if she’s coming down with the flu.

  
“Okay, time’s up. Godspeed, folks. All you need is two out of four points to pass.” A level of concentration fades into the room.

  
The exam goes smoothly. The first few students are totally correct in the answers they provide. It seems for a shining moment that the class is actually benefiting from Poe’s careful annotations and Rey’s own try-hard commentary.

  
Then it’s Kylo’s turn. Rey feins a page turn, stares deeply into her instructor’s text and wills him to find the restraint necessary to keep from bashing her brains out in her sleep for what she’s about to ask.

  
“Number four, Ren. Quote me Bentham and explain me utilitarianism.”

  
“Excuse me, quote him?”

  
“Yes, please,” Rey answers thickly. Kylo looks mutinous, but stoically begins.

  
“Bentham established utilitarianism to describe the concept of what works in practice and what doesn’t. So in essence, the consequence of an action determines the rightness of it. He wanted us to consider others. To make the greatest good a priority, because he considered it the best measure of fair governance.”

  
Kylo swallows, eyes glazed over and off in another place Rey isn’t privy to. Fleetingly she considers that he might be nervous to speak in front of the class.  
“And the quote?” From a long-ago argument, Rey is aware that Kylo only knows one Bentham line by heart.

  
“‘Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.’” Kylo’s eyes drift to hers, filled with an understanding that stretches the recesses of Rey’s chest with an unlikely hope.

  
“And what does that mean to you?” She’s sure the spell will be broken by this incursion of a third question, or that he simply won’t answer, not needing to for full credit.  
“It means that we can waste our lives in ambition, ignoring what’s really important. It’s a cautionary sentiment.” Kylo folds his hands softly on the desk.

  
“Excellent,” she says. “Four points for the answer, plus two points for the analysis, which is important for us to know. Next, Julianna, why don’t you tell us about Austin and empirical law?”

  
**** Wednesday, November 8th, 10:02am

  
“How’s life with the freak?” Finn thrusts a shoulder at her, and manages not to grimace as it’s weighed down with fifty pounds of theoretical law.

  
“Please, Peanut. People can hear us.” Rey stops walking. “Today was actually less of a crash and burn. He gave some pretty thoughtful answers for the exam. He’s still having trouble blending in, though.” Rey explains as best she can how well the seminar went according to plan. She omits the part about their identical breakfasts.

  
“So he’s leaving without an argument, which is literally unprecedented. And I’m talking to one of the new students. She’s this Asian girl, sort of looks like she cries at puppy videos, her name’s Rose?” Rey pauses. “Have you heard of Rose?” Finn nods.

  
“Yeah, I know Rose. She somehow got ahold of my number through debate. She’s a real 1L of a 2L.” Rey senses something more there but lets it rest.

  
“Well, I like Rose. She is a bit of an acquired taste at first. Her sister’s cool. Anyways, Kylo’s in the doorway and I’m thinking “oh thank god it’s over” and that’s when Rose just has to go and be a hero.” Rey frowns as she recalls how quickly her sense of progress was erased.

  
“Go on?” Finn looks almost proud.

  
“If you know Rose, then you know how she’s always throwing herself into these awkward situations. Like the PETA protest last month. So she’s to my left, right? And I don’t even know how she does it so fast, but without me being able to do jackshit to stop her, she sticks out her foot and trips him. It was like we were back in junior high.”

  
Rey leaves out the part about hearing Poe say “Vive la resistance!” under his breath as it happened. She knows too well that whatever Poe does is infinitely defensible to Finn.

  
“Because he’s so tall, you know, he has a weird center of gravity. I’ve seen him wipe out before when he thought I wasn’t looking. But this time he really collided with the floor. It looked like it hurt.”

  
“Oh my god!” Finn says, far too eager to hear more. “Was it bad?”

  
“Pretty bad. He fell on his nose. It bled like hell.” Again, Rey wrestles with telling the whole story. What stops her is the knowledge of how angry Kylo would be to know that she was talking about his past to anyone other than Leia. Beyond that, Rey knows it’s not her place to say.

  
“I tried to talk him into going to the health clinic but he wasn’t having it.” Rey sighs. “He kind of just stormed off.” Finn wipes a tear from the corner of his eye, wheezing.

  
“Typical Kylo Ren. I don’t know why you try with him when he still treats you like shit. I know you’re his teacher and all, but that doesn’t mean you’ve got to like it. It’s totally an option to laugh at him. Nobody would blame you.”

  
“It’s tempting,” Rey concedes, “but for some reason it just isn’t that funny to me. Maybe because I feel so bad for the General. I wanted to run it past her but she’s busy with some public outreach thing today.”

  
“The Democratic debate forum,” Finn says, “It’s claiming people left and right.” They’ve crossed the quad to stand in front of the dining commons. Rey wishes for the money to treat Finn to fries.

  
“Got your donut?” She asks.

  
“Yes.”

  
“Got my books?”

  
“Yes,” Finn answers. Rey dips under the physical weight of all the work she has to do.

  
“Alright, Peanut,” she says, “Pay attention during mock or you’re gonna end up in my class.”

  
“Not a problem today.” Finn leans in close. “Silverfox Solo is on rotation in the trial room.”

  
“Ugh.” This is why Rey drinks. “Seeya tomorrow?”

  
“Duh. Call me if he gets uppity.”

  
“Be prepared, in that case,” Rey answers dryly.

  
**** Wednesday, November 8th, 6:01pm

  
“Turn off the fucking lights.” Kylo storms into the living room, and it’s all she can do to stifle a few cathartic words of her own in response. “I’ve told you a thousand times!”

  
“Alright, alright. Let me finish. It’s Poe’s handwriting.”

  
“Ten,’ Kylo begins to count. “Nine… _eight_.” Rey’s vision blurs. She slams her pen in her instructor’s text and sits up from the couch.

  
“And here I thought maybe we had a breakthrough today.”

  
Kylo leans back on his heels. Rey studies the nasty bruise forming on the bridge of his nose, and suddenly his open hostility makes a tired sort of sense.  
“Spare me your bullshit,” he replies. Rey wills together an image of yin and yang. There’s good in him still, there has to be. Against his best efforts, Rey has seen it change his mind.

  
“Kylo,” she begins softly. “I’m just trying to get through the night here. It’s not bullshit. I liked what you said about the Bentham quote. It sounded like something I would say. And I’m sorry about Rose. You saw me take her aside and tell her I didn’t appreciate what she did. They feel strongly about you and that’s not something I can control.”

  
Kylo is listening with genuine interest. She continues.

  
“The reality of the last election is that a lot of people were disenfranchised. A lot of people lost their welfare. And they blame the alt-right. And they’re not wrong. You’re free to disagree, and I know you do. Just please don’t hurt me over it. There’s leftover donuts in the fridge, if you want one.”

  
“Why do you bring food for them that you can’t afford for yourself?” Rey smiles at him, using every shred of optimism in her tired mind to make sure he can tell it’s real.  
“No one wants to sit in a miserable classroom.” She continues. “By the way, did I actually see you eat today? And drink coffee? _What will the other aliens say_?” His lip quirks.

This might be the closest they’ve come to civility. Rey’s lost track.

  
“The other aliens say I don’t need coffee to survive, and they’re right,” Kylo answers, half-heartedly defensive. “I still can’t believe we picked the same thing.”

“I know.” Rey’s not sure whether it actively creeps her out, what close tabs they keep on each other. “Maybe this isn’t such a disaster after all.”

  
Impossibly, Rey catches the vestiges of a wry smile playing on Kylo’s lips. It disappears as he checks his watch.

  
“Turn off the lights when you’re done, please, Rey? I inherited my father’s migraines.”

  
**** Thursday, November 9th, 10:45am

  
“Dr. Solo,” Rey begins.

  
“Is this about my idiot son or my idiot dog?”

  
Rey smiles. “Heard Chewie’s getting sued by Professor Hux. Apparently it involves a pricey pair of shoes?”

  
“The perils of working with a bunch of lawyers. They’d take me to court over a paper clip.” Han looks momentarily pained. “Chewie was just doing what dogs do.”

  
“I would never fault him for that,” Rey says.

  
“So this must be about my other idiot.” Rey considers getting Dr. Solo a bottle of ‘92 whiskey for his second drawer and conversations like this one.

  
“Sorry, Professor,” Rey says, and means it. “It’s nothing he’s really done this time.”

  
“You know if Ben ever lays a hand on you, he’ll have to deal with me,” He tells her lowly, sincere with worry.

  
“Oh Kylo? Never. He’s too much of a coward to screw with me,” she says.

  
“That’s for damn sure, Princess.” Han leans back in his seat and studies her. “I’m not hearing much of a problem then.”

  
Rey takes a bracing breath.

  
“Yeah, that’s the thing. He’s being weirdly civil. It’s like the calm before the storm.”

  
“You’re used to having it out every night, huh?”

  
“Something like that,” Rey mumbles, shifting in her seat.

  
“Just like me and his mom, always at each other’s throats.” In response to Rey’s horrified expression, he amends, “In the beginning. Before anything....transpired.”

  
“You know, we actually connected the other day in class. I think on some level he knows what he’s doing is wrong.”

  
“Of course he knows what he’s doing is wrong. He was warned by everyone about the alt-right. And yet he still wants to play Grandpa Vader. Which is the reason why he’s not our son anymore.”

  
“Han, I think I might be able to convert him.”

  
“Oh, Rey. Many a lesser man has tried.”

  
“I know, but this is me. His roommate, his professor. He won’t be able to avoid it.”

  
“Luc was his teacher once, too, at the Academy. Didn’t do him much good.”

  
“I can’t explain why, but I think it’s different for us. There’s a specific type of bond we all have. Like knowing someone from a past life? I sense it sometimes with Leia,” Rey pauses. “And strongly with Luc.”

  
Rey wants to add, and always with you.

  
Han scoffs. “I’ve heard that there’s such a thing. It’s like deja vu,” he clarifies, “but on steroids. I’m not sure I buy it. The crazy thing is, I know from talking to you that it’s real. But my sense of it is purely surface level. Like something from this lifetime.”

  
Rey is silent in surprise. She never imagined Han Solo would be made a reluctant believer in anything. What’s more is the tension in his face, like he’s waiting for Rey to connect the dots on something big.

  
“But about my son,” Han says. “He is what he is. Don’t lose too much sleep trying to fix him when you’ve got your own life ahead of you.”

“The best advice is the hardest to take," Rey answers. "See you at the faculty meeting tomorrow?” she asks, shouldering her coat. There are so many more questions, but Rey is already at capacity for today.

  
“Thanks for reminding me,” Han replies dryly. “And kid? Be careful out there. You’ve got a lot to learn.”

 

 

**** Thursday, November 9th, 7:14pm

  
“Where were you this afternoon?”

  
“With Han,” Rey answers pleasantly.

  
“Wasting your time again.” Kylo stalks over to the couch. “I thought you might actually have some work to do.”

  
“I’m good for the faculty meeting tomorrow. Finn’s got our bit for the forum covered. It’s pretty rudimentary good-vibe outreach stuff. You should go just for the Solo debate.”

  
“Wouldn’t that be nice, one big happy family, arguing to death.” Kylo’s strangely out of form tonight. It relieves Rey of her usual end-of-the-day exasperation.

  
“It was just a suggestion. Sit down, Ben. Do you want some decaf? I think I made too much.” At her behest, he takes a seat on the carpet. Rey has never seen him do so.

  
“Alright, sure. I guess,” he says, prickly. Rey does a quick double take, but stands to oblige him. In the kitchen she moves by rote. She stirs in two sugars without prompting her memory and returns to the living room.

  
Kylo remains seated on the floor, kneeling, and rather than risk offense, Rey elects to do the same. “Here you are,” she says, handing him the mug. “Coffee’s hot.”  
Despite her warning, Kylo sips at the drink, and grimaces when it burns him.

  
Against all odds, Rey watches this with compassion. A dozen teasing sentences cross her mind, and Rey fears she might be starting to enjoy herself in Ben’s company.

  
“Perk up. It’s this or gin,” she says finally.

“Gin?” Kylo asks incredulously.

  
“Third drawer of my bureau. I’m surprised you haven’t found it.”

  
“I don’t search through your things.” His earnestness warms Rey. “Am I such a monster?”

  
“Sometimes.” She waits.

  
“I know.” Is all he says, and it’s all Rey needs.

  
“Okay, that’s it. You look sorry. Let’s have a real drink.”

  
**** Thursday, November 9th, 8:19pm

  
“I used to dream about that kinda stuff too.”

  
“Like an imaginary friend?” Kylo swills from his glass.

  
“No, he was real. His name was Jacen,” she answers.

  
“Oh.” Kylo’s chin bobs, and for a moment Rey worries he might be drunk enough to cry at nothing. “Tell me more,” he says finally.

  
“I wanted him to be my first kiss. I guess that didn’t work out.”

  
“At least you had a first kiss,” Kylo mutters.

  
“No way,” Rey says. She tones down her surprise at the look on his face. “Sorry, that was rude. I forgot you went to boarding school.”

  
“There were girls at the Academy, but most of them ignored the boys. Especially me. It wasn’t very encouraging.”

  
“That’s tough,” Rey agrees. “What’s holding you back now?”

  
“I guess the thought of rejection is harder than being alone.”

  
Rey, floored by his honesty, says quickly, “But you wouldn’t be rejected.” She pauses. “As long as you held off on the Nazi stuff.”

  
Kylo keeps her stare. The leveled resolve in his eyes hurts. He’s so closed off she wonders if she’s not wasting her breath.

  
“I have a feeling it’s not that easy,” he whispers. Sometime after midnight Rey started drinking straight from the bottle. Now she sets it aside.

  
“Listen,” she says as sweetly as possible. “It’s simple. Like anything once you know what you’re doing.”

  
“Oh?” His face is unreadable. Rey takes a chance and moves closer on the carpet.

  
“Yeah,” she slurs. “Look, I’ll show you.”

  
At this point Rey can’t even claim altruism. It’s the split-open part of his expression that tells her any touch would be welcome. She wants him because of it as much as she lets herself.

  
“First you have to be really close to the other person.” She climbs into his wide lap as seductively as possible. Rey’s only done this one or two times. Kylo surveys her as if any second they are going to wind up in a fight that will wipe the moment away.

  
“Relax, I got you,” she says. “See? We’re so close now that you can tell I want it too. It’s the way I’m smiling. Like I can’t help it but I seem nervous? That’s how you know.”

  
Rey brushes back the dark hair masking Kylo’s lips.

  
“A good first kiss is quick. It’s just a taste,” Rey leans in. “That’s the hot part.” Her fingers ghost over his cheek. She thinks she’s never known any man’s skin to be so soft.

  
“No tongue. That’s important,” Rey breathes. “And close your eyes. It’s okay, you won’t miss.”

  
Rey wraps her legs around his waist. She’s too dizzy with alcohol not to.

  
“Now do it.” Kylo shakes his head. She forgot to mention that part. The hesitation. “Kiss me,” she urges.

  
In a whisper of surety, he angles her face up to his and meets their lips. It’s chaste enough to ache inside her as something unfinished.

  
His lips are still parted in want when they pull apart.

  
“Ben,” she breathes, “Oh my god.” There’s tears in her voice. After that Rey loses her place in the lesson. She realizes she was wrong; there’s no science to sex.  
Everything he does is the right thing because he’s doing it at all.

  
Before she speaks, Rey takes off her shirt. It’s not willful or calculated, but when she asks, “Wanna keep going?” he nods eagerly.

  
“I want to, but I’ve never,” he falters. “I’ve never done anything like this. I feel lost.”

  
“Don’t be afraid,” she whispers, “I feel it too.” Rey wishes she knew before what those words meant to him. Kylo crushes her to his chest like he’s trying to shatter her sternum.

  
“Please,” he says. Rey has only heard the same unspeakable surrender in the word goodbye.

  
“Okay,” she bites out. “I’ll help you. Take off your pants.”

  
Kylo does so in a rush. His boxers tent as he looks back at Rey. The expectation in his eyes speaks for him.

  
“Alright,” she says, and takes off her sweats. They sit cross-legged and stare at each other. The room sways in front of Rey, reminding her just how drunk she really is.  
“I’m not a patient person,” Kylo whispers.

  
“Well then, this is good practice,” Rey answers.

  
She starts with a finger that traces down the line of his chest. It bisects his hollow rib cage, the scars where he’s obviously been starving himself. His abs shrink under Rey’s touch with each breath.

  
“Now me,” she says.

  
His hand shakes copiously. When it passes under the waistband of her underwear, Rey jolts into Kylo’s lap. They kiss like that for what feels like an eternity.

  
“Condom?” Rey slurs.

  
“No, you?”

  
“Not a chance,” she replies. “Maybe in my drawer.”

  
“Alright, come on,” Kylo says, hauling Rey to her feet. He could carry her easily, but he lets her walk on her own. They weave down the hall, crashing into the walls. Rey giggles uncontrollably.

  
“You’re really hot,” she tells Kylo, throwing him down on her bed.

  
“And you’re super fucking drunk,” he says, but there’s no judgment in it.

  
“Maybe so,” Rey whispers, palming greedily at his underwear. “I’m just being honest.”

  
“Okay, Rey,” Kylo returns, but he moves away from her on the mattress.

  
“Where are you going?” she asks.

  
“I don’t think this is a good idea. We don’t have protection. You’re too far gone to remember.”

  
“I’ll remember!” Rey protests.

  
“No, you won’t!” Kylo says, a touch too bitterly. Rey runs a hand down his side, soothing, but he shakes it off. “I’m sorry. I think I should go.”

  
Rey rolls over, burying her head in the quilt, and stays there. She hopes against hope that in a moment he’ll return to her, having changed his mind. She waits forever.

  
“Night, Princess,” she hears, just on the edge of consciousness. She listens for the sound of him climbing into bed beside her, but he stands instead.

  
It’s the finality of an impossibly soft click that rouses her for the last time. Gone is the crack of light that spilled over her pillow from the hall, and she's alone.

  
Rey knows beyond a doubt that when they wake up tomorrow, it will be like nothing ever happened.

  
**** Friday, November 10th, 9:03am

  
Rey’s wearing a cotton dress with a daisy pattern, shuffling through the notes that scatter her portion of the roundtable. Dr. Solo is the first to stand, clearing his throat.

  
“Alright, guess we oughta get started. Reyna’s gonna talk about what it’s like dealing with remediation, then we’re all gonna clap, and go around the circle and share our feelings. But first,” he smiles sardonically. “Our lovely Title Nine coordinator is going to say a few words.”

  
By now Rey is only fractionally listening. Han places a steady palm on the back of her chair, where she’s slung her damp jacket.

  
“Reyna, you ready?”

  
“Yeah, thanks Dr. Solo. Hi, all.” Unsure, Rey stands. In a room of twenty-five, she’s still identifiable as the least experienced. Rey pauses, steeling herself. She looks to the dearly departed in the sky and wills a shred of confidence into her voice. “Today I want to talk about the forwarding effect of positivity in teaching remediation.”

  
“So in closing, be nice to your 1Ls. Don’t neglect the flowers at your feet. If you see someone floundering, reach out. We are all imperfect in our practice of the law and in the application of the values that govern us. Thank you.”

  
As Rey sits, she feels the tip of a familiar foot ghost over her own under the shared space.

  
“They loved it,” Poe mouths. An accompanying smather of applause reinforces his words.

  
“Stop stomping on me,” she hisses in his ear. “I’m so hungover I could cry.”

  
Giddiness flares between them all the same. Rey is able to modestly receive the praise of her peers, but when Dr. Solo remarks, “That’s what a natural looks like,” her breath hitches.

  
“You’re the real deal, now that you’ve presented,” Poe says for the benefit of the room, before turning his attention back to his notes. “Congrats, Professor.”

  
**** Friday, November 10th, 4:32pm

  
“Is there something you could put on? Like a towel or something?” Kylo smirks.

  
“I don’t want to be doing this any more than you right now.” Rey doesn’t trust that for a second. She knocked on the bathroom door specifically for the lotion he stole.

She was taken aback when he gestured her inside to join him. They’ve been avoiding each other again since yesterday, this time with quite a bit more ferocity.

  
“Yeah, sure you don’t,” Rey says skeptically. “Where are you going anyways?” She knows it can’t be the department social.

  
Kylo’s expression clouds into a familiar look of far-off regression. “The Senator asked me to come in late.”

  
“Fun Friday night.” Rey pauses, weighing her options. “Do you want me to wait up for you?”

  
“And why would you do that?” he asks.

  
“Because I don’t like the sound of you alone in the office with him. It’s creepy.”

  
Kylo snorts. “What, you jealous?” She slaps the lotion on her legs a little emphatically.

  
“Don’t flatter yourself. Screw me for caring I guess.” He steps closer to her.

  
“I’m doing what I need to do to so that I can be successful.” Rey shakes her head. “Snoke is the only reason I can afford this apartment.”

  
“I was always under the impression that there were better ways to get ahead than selling your soul.” The undershirt Kylo pulls over his head bunches at his chest, and for an absurd moment, Rey admires what she sees.

  
“Maybe for other people.” Kylo looks like he caught her staring and doesn’t know what to do with that information. She wonders how much of last night he actually remembers.

  
“Other people? Like you’re so different.” Rey faces him. “I didn’t have friends in Arizona. I didn’t have a family. I had a camper in a field and ten thousand stars. What I did with what I had was always my choice.”

  
Kylo’s answer carries the direness of longing. Rey knows some of it is for her.

  
“The hardest part is that I want to believe you,” he sighs. “But it’s just too late, Rey.” She can think of nothing to say in response.

  
“Don’t worry about me,” he says as he’s leaving. “You could have anyone in that dress. Finn will be there.” When Rey meets his eyes, she knows he’s already given up.

  
“I don’t dress for anyone,” Rey says automatically. “And Finn’s gay. I thought you knew.”

  
“Poe then. Or Rose Tico?” Kylo tries as he laces his shoes. He sighs before facing her. “What can I do to make you understand?”

  
“I thought I understood,” Rey says bitterly.

  
“You don’t even know the half of it,” he says. “Someone like me in your life? That’s how innocent people die. Go where you’re safe, Princess.”

  
Though she can’t stop him from leaving, Rey lingers for a long while after he’s gone, thinking.

  
**** Friday, November 10th, 5:59pm

  
Rey’s heels are hidden under a cocktail table of cold shrimp, and she’s a glass of Pinot away from letting Finn and Poe make out in front of Professor Hux.

  
“Beautiful girl.” Poe sweeps her forward with a flourish. “Let’s have a dance.”

  
“No, come on!” but Rey’s giggling too hard to resist. They move together over the ballroom floor, bumping elbows with Rose and Finn. It takes them almost half a song to adjust to the rhythm.

“Alright, this isn’t so bad. We’re getting it,” he says after a time.

  
“Can I tell you about Jacen?” Rey is too tipsy to hide where her thoughts are straying.

  
“Jacen?” Poe asks. “The kid you knew?”

  
“Yeah, but he wasn’t just some kid. Jacen was my best friend. I thought maybe we knew each other for a while, and he moved away or something. I was always fuzzy on details. I guess that’s how I coped. But I remembered Jacen.”

  
“Was he your first boyfriend?” Poe asks.

  
“We were young to think like that, but I know I wanted it at some point. It was hard not to. He was older than me. Tall for his age. Sensitive.” Rey blushes. “A little like Kylo, but nice.”

  
“That’s funny. I’ve never heard you talk about anyone from your past.”

  
“That’s because there was no one.” Rey cheers his grave expression with a snort. “Please, it was fine. Would I have come all this way otherwise?”

  
“I think you were always meant to end up here,” Poe answers.

  
**** Friday, November 10th, 6:13pm

  
“Professor Solo!” Rey calls from across the ballroom. Dutifully Han is making an appearance, but he looks none too happy about it. The relief on his face is palpable as he makes his way to their table.

  
“Hey, kids. How’s the night?”

  
“Wonderful, Professor, now that you’re here,” Finn says, and for the moment Poe stands totally forgotten.

  
“Actually,” Rey says, “Could I talk to you in private?” Finn’s murderous look and mouthed curses do nothing to deter her. Or Solo, because he nods stoically at her in response.

  
“All good things must come to an end,” he says cryptically.

  
Han follows her to the parking lot. From there they are able to see the faculty offices, each floor with a bit of residual light. They stop a distance away from the entrance, and Rey lights a cigarette from her bag.

  
“Oh, you knew,” she says at Han’s look of mock surprise. “Don’t tell me you didn’t.”

  
“An otherwise-innocent girl like you? Of course,” he pauses. “You know what, give me one of those.” Rey obliges, and they smoke in comfortable silence until she can wait no longer.

  
“Professor?” she asks. “Can you explain why Ben calls me Princess?” It’s not a question. Han sighs in resignation, stomps out his cigarette and motions Rey back towards the ballroom.

  
“I’ll explain it to you, kid. You deserve to know. But let’s get Leia first.”

  
**** Friday, November 10th, 7:05pm

  
“No, that’s just wrong. I wasn’t in Witness Protection. I was an emancipated minor.”

  
“But didn’t you ever wonder how you got that way?” Leia places a staying hand on Han’s shoulder. With a look between them he falls silent.

  
“Of course! But I figured...I don’t know. That my parents weren’t that great. Or that something bad happened and they would be coming back for me.” She looks away.  
“I thought maybe they were really important people. Like astronauts. Or lawyers.” She draws a clumsy star on the cold glass of the window. “I thought maybe they were away on business, and that I would only slow them down.”

  
“See,” Han says to Leia. “She knew all along. The kid’s smart. They couldn’t relocate the genes out of her.”

  
“Oh, shut up,” Leia replies. It’s the first time Rey can remember hearing her break decorum. “This isn’t about you. Or anyone else but Reyna.”

  
“Okay, what is going on?” Rey asks.

  
“Why don’t you sit down, dear?” Rey collapses into one of Han’s rickety office chairs. The blunt end of the tree key nudges through the pocket of her dress. It’s a comfort.

  
“Does Luc know?” Leia nods. “What about Finn and Poe?”

  
“No, just us. The older generation,” she replies.

  
“Oh.” Rey thinks fast. That means she can stay with them for a while, when this proves like all other explanations to be an elaborate hoax. She’s started from scratch before.

  
Leia takes both Rey’s hands in her cool grip. “You’re Oberon Kenobi’s daughter,” she says, “and your mother was Satine Kryze."

  
“I’m a Kenobi?” Rey asks dumbly.

  
“You are, and the last. Oberon was an important Democrat and the Secretary of State for a time. Your mother was a diplomatic pacifist with the UN. They came under great danger during the Vader administration because of their opposition to the alt-right. Do you know what happened to them?”

  
“Chairwoman Kryze was stabbed in her office.” Rey frowns. “And Secretary Kenobi was shot by an alt-right demonstrator here on campus.”

  
“We were together when it happened.” For a moment Leia looks her years.

  
“The Democratic coalition learned that Vader himself was a suspect in the murder of your father, but no arrests were ever made. It was a terrible loss. They were both such powerful politicians that their marriage put them in the spotlight. But we had no idea how much danger they were in.”

  
“When you were relocated to Arizona, it was so that you could be safe in the future from such grief. We planned to come back for you when it was safest, but records showed that you fell out of the system almost immediately after placement. It was easier to believe that you moved on with a fresh start.” Leia swallows.

  
“That was before your application came to our attention. I took one look at it and I knew. We were depriving you of a destiny that not only held a place for you, but that had been sustaining you your whole life.”

  
Han is the first to break the silence.

  
“You were placed in Witness Protection as a last resort. Skywalker wanted to send you to live with his extended family in Tacoma, but it was just too high-profile. Only the four of us knew could know where you were.”

  
“The four of you?” Rey blurts. She forces out a hollow laugh. “The four of you,” she repeats bitterly.

  
Leia winces. “We didn’t have a choice in that. One moment you were like family, the next you were gone.” Rey forcibly yanks her hands from Leia’s lap.

  
“He knew?” she snarls.

  
Rey concentrates again on the obscurity that flickers over her memory of Jacen. At last it solidifies into a coherent face.

  
“You told me he had no friends, Leia, why? That wasn’t true.” Rey waits the barest second before barreling on. “You’re telling the truth, I was there.”

  
Rey sighs. “Because Ben is Jacen,” she realizes.

  
“It’s his middle name.” Rey registers Luc’s presence in the office. He’s out of breath from rushing up the stairs. “You two spent some good time together, though it was pretty rocky in the beginning.”

  
“Rocky?” Rey repeats.

  
“Antagonistic,” Luc corrects. Han exchanges a private-looking glance with Leia, but they make no open comment. “You were a bit obsessed with one another.”

The irony kills Rey. That all the reasonable explanations in the world are wrong, and this lone impossibility is the truth.

  
“Thanks for coming,” she says quietly in response.

  
“You needed me,” Luc says simply. They study each other in a new light.

  
_Please_ , she thinks. It’s an old emotion. _Please, I love you, come back!_

  
“There were a lot of times I needed you,” Rey whispers, and begins to cry. “All of you.”

  
Three sets of arms rush to embrace her.

 

**** Friday, November 10th, 8:22pm

  
“I believe you,” Rey says, “but I think it’s best if I leave.”

  
“And where are you going to stay, with Finn in his dorm room?” The condescension in Kylo’s voice spurs Rey into action. She grabs her backpack from the couch, locates her laptop and shoves it inside.

  
“You know, yeah. I am.” Disappointment is clear in her voice. “You fucking snake. You’re getting just what you deserve, you know that?”

  
“What happened in there?” Kylo is on his feet now, too. The raciness of what he’s about to do blooms in his chest, committing itself to memory. “Say it!” His hand raises as if poised to strike. It hovers there, shaking, until he drops it to the space in front of her.

  
Rey grimaces at his outstretched palm, flicking it away. “They told me about my parents.” She walks purposefully to the door. “And I am not no one.”

  
“After all this time, why are you still holding onto the past?” It’s a poor excuse for a plea, but it works. Rey freezes. “Kill it if you have to. Just find a way to let go, because it doesn’t matter.”

  
“It matters to me!” she bites out. Kylo swallows hard, and Rey senses a shift in the conflict that still wars over him. “If you had just told me from the start. Things would be...different.” Her voice falters. Rey looks to him, lost.

  
“I know.” Kylo whispers. “It was a mistake not to.”

  
“I’m sorry,” Kylo continues, reaching towards her. It takes every effort for Rey to resist. “Don’t go. Stay. I can show you your place in all this.” His voice cracks.  
“Please?”

  
For a moment Rey considers him with open desire. The light of the hall cuts a sharp relief between the halves of his face like a bisected heart. To say Rey wishes would be unbearably trite.

  
“I’ll be back for my stuff,” she replies, and slams the door on her way out.

  
**** Friday, November 10th, 8:49pm

  
“Finn. We gotta talk about what just happened to me,” Rey says.

  
“Okay, hold on.” Rey hears Poe’s laugh in the background of the receiver. “Alright, shoot.”

  
“I don’t think I’m going to be living with Kylo anymore,” she says.

“Oh, you win the lottery?” A corner of Rey’s mouth quirks.

  
“Sort of, Peanut.”

  
“So where’s the money coming from?” Poe asks after she’s told them all she knows. Rey still hasn’t been given the chance to so much as Google her mother’s name.

  
“It’s like in Harry Potter. They set up some sort of weird CD account out of my parents’ estate that’s just been sitting until now.” Rey feels dizzy. “I have a real Birth Certificate. I have pictures with my dad. Poe, I’m twenty-four.” Her voice goes funny and high-pitched at the end.

  
“Oh, Rey. I’m not surprised. You’ve got the look of greatness about you,” Poe says.

  
“Sweetheart,” Finn cuts in, “You wanna spend the night?”

  
“Sure, yeah.” Rey pauses. “I just stormed out on Kylo. I can’t believe him. Of all things...” Rey trails off.

  
“Okay, we’re gonna pick you up in the Uber. Where are you?”

  
“In front of my building. I’ll be the one in an evening dress and combat boots. Oh, and I’m holding a backpack of photographs.”

  
On the other end of the line, Finn and Poe whistle in unison.

  
**** Friday, November 10th, 11:56pm

  
Finn and Poe are passed out together on the bed. Their legs mingle in a hot pink afghan, candy wrappers strewn across the carpet. They stink from three feet away of vodka.

  
Rey satisfies herself with the dregs of a gin and tonic she found in the sink. She’s content just to sit up into the quiet hours of the night, absorbing every detail of the past. For the first time, what she finds makes sense.

  
The pictures provided by Leia are spread in Rey’s lap like as many cue cards. The polaroids came to her too numerous to count. In one, a bearded Oberon secures a life vest around purse-sized baby Chewie. In the background, Han eats a corndog. Rey stares and stares at it in awe.

  
She knows a part of her is preserved in these pictures, as much a subject as either of her parents. Her mother shows the same habit of curling her legs to her chest when she’s caught off-guard, which she often is by the camera. Rey thinks she might have been shy. Oberon is harder to pin down, but so like her in his looks. He ages well.

  
Near the end, Satine stands big and pregnant next to a blue-and-white decked Christmas tree. She holds a jar of apple butter close to her chest. Rey appears in the photos shortly after, a shrimp-colored baby dressed in a bunny suit. Her father holds her in every shot like something delicate.

  
She flips forward, stopping by chance on a print-sized picture. There’s a round indentation at the top from where someone’s stuck it to a fridge.

  
In the photo, Rey wears a tutu over a red gingham dress. She sits in the arms of a dark-haired boy. Gingerly he holds a plush bunny in front of her, which Rey greedily snatches to her face as the shutter closes. Ben’s smile is momentarily illuminated, and its expression of utter devotion is preserved for Rey to see two decades later.

  
“Oh shit,” she swears aloud. Finn shifts beside her, muttering under his breath, and Rey brings a hand over her mouth in apology. The rest of the photos feature the two of them together, in every way imaginable. Often Ben sits sourly in the corner of the frame, and her in his lap.

  
Chronologically, the last of Leia’s pictures capture the day Rey turns six. Ben is ten and a half. This is him suffering the constant self-hate that will evolve into darkness. The camera tells the story with painful clarity. It wrings a depth from Rey she didn’t know she had.

  
In one, Ben wears a black hoodie. It’s mid-October. They sit together on a lawn swing in Luc’s backyard, a rough-hewn wooden fence behind them. The leaves of his grandmother’s oak tree are on fire with beauty. One set of legs dangles from the swing; one reaches the ground. The birthday party continues uninterrupted in the background, though Rey quietly absented herself from the cake-cutting half an hour before.

  
A thin grey blanket covers the pair of them from the chill. Rey fits exquisitely into Ben’s side, safe from the wind. Shy as a fawn she giggles up at him, and Ben  
catches her chin in two of his fingers. The camera captures the moment he draws an errant patch of hair back into her topmost bun.

  
Rey remembers the rest, minus the coherent rush of love she was expecting. All she knows is the desire to stay with Ben and fix what aches inside him.

  
“That’s better,” he says sweetly. Rey demurs, hides her face in his chest and inhales. Ben reeks of his coconut shampoo. “You cold, Princess? Want my sweatshirt?”

  
“I’m okay,” she says simply. “I'm just scared.”

  
“I know,” he says finally. “I promise I’ll be strong enough to protect you someday.”

  
Rey knows now that it was the last time. She longs to hold herself here indefinitely, in the belief that no matter how bad it gets, she’ll see Ben tomorrow and things will be okay between them.

  
She wakes Finn at eight o’clock sharp, groggy and murderous.

  
“Sorry Peanut, I gotta go take care of something. Here’s the key to Luc’s office. I can’t take it with me, where I’m going.”

  
**** Saturday, November 11th, 8:15am

  
He’s particularly slow to stand, and suffers an accompanying thunder of nausea from the motion. Snoke snaps his fingers, and Kylo’s hands join behind his back as if by mechanism.

  
“Come closer,” and Kylo obeys. Snoke surveys him with an odd menace around his eyes. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  
“My roommate. I miss her, sir.” There’s no point in secrecy anymore.

  
“And who is she?”

  
“She was nobody special.” Kylo thinks. “Except to me.” Snoke laughs. It’s an ugly sound.

  
“I sense you’re afraid. Why?”

  
“I don’t want her to see me for what I am, now that she knows the truth.” Kylo exhales in defeat. “It’s already made her hate me that much more.”

  
“As she should,” Snoke replies. “It’s extraordinary to me that you still have faith that any woman would want such a failure.”

  
Kylo leans into the abyss of isolation that Snoke’s voice provides. “I’m sorry, sir,” he says.

  
“Good boy,” Snoke replies. “Now, where’s my coffee?”

  
**** Saturday, November 11th, 8:22am

  
Rey takes the steps of the office four at a time. Others stare after her, looking askance at their assistants. This is the first time a Kenobi has stood in the presence of government for too long. Perhaps they sense she has come to restore order.

  
Rey enters with no plan. Only that she has to get Ben out.

  
“Excuse me, Miss, what’s your business here?” Rey strides confidently to the security desk, pulling from her wallet the fake I.D. from her no-name life in Topawa.

  
“My name’s Reyna. I’m meeting with Senator Snoke this morning.”

  
The guard makes a show of checking the roster, speaking code into her field phone. Rey stares at her chrome headset and waits.

  
“Sorry for the delay, you weren’t in the book. Upper level just cleared you to enter. The Senator’s currently on the fifth floor.”

  
“Thank you very much, ma’am,” Rey says. She jets across the lobby to the clanging elevator terminal, pressing the button twice.

  
The fifth floor is pitch dark, crackling with the negative energy she often senses from Ben. Rey parts the heavy glass doors of the lobby and surges headlong into another wide-open, empty space. It rips a second wave of dread from her.

  
Before she loses all sanity, Rey spots another gatekeeper in the corner of the room.

  
“I’m here to meet with Snoke,” she says on approach. The dead-eyed girl looks up from her paperwork with no apparent emotion apart from conceit.

  
“Through there,” she recites, and Rey notices the pinwheel of light against the floor in front of her. It’s the keyhole to another, smaller door.

  
Rey enters with little effort this time. She’s immediately disarmed by a voice that licks at power like the flames of hell.

  
“Ah, Miss Reyna. Welcome.” Snoke’s yellowed eyes gnash at her body with every word. “What a beauty you are, but so small.”

  
“Do you know why I’m here?” she asks, tone clipped. Now it’s Rey’s turn to exert the upper hand. “Oh, you don’t. How embarrassing.”

  
“Let me take a guess. You’ve come to claim something of yours.” Snoke beckons. “Come closer, you can’t see him from there.” Compelled by a force stronger than her own, Rey steps forward.

  
Ben kneels at Snoke’s feet, so starved and sick he’s dwarfed by the wooden desk. Emptiness fills his black eyes where they rest unfocused on the distance. His curls trap him in Snoke’s withered fingers, allowing his face to be pressed none too gently into the crotch of the Senator’s suit. Rey takes an involuntary breath of air.

  
“Ben?” Rey tries gently. She takes another step.

  
His hands fit together behind his back like a jewelry clasp, unwavering. He continues to ignore the leather-toed foot that crushes his lap and all else around him. Rey doubts he heard her say his name.

  
“He’s such a worthless human being, it’s a pity he makes such a worthy servant.”

  
Snoke addresses Rey with a tone that tells her he couldn’t care less either way. “Is that why you’re here, child? To try to bring him back? You know he’s mine now.”

“Oh, the fuck he is,” Rey says. “Ben knows where he belongs.”

  
“Does he, child?” Snoke adjusts himself, kicking Kylo’s face to the carpet in distaste. He lands hard, drawing a hand over his bruised face. Rey suppresses the desire to run and soothe him.

  
“Why don't we let Kylo judge for himself, shall we?” Snoke takes Kylo by the hair and yanks.

  
They stay like that, inches apart. Rey experiences a pang of disgust, and has to glance away.

  
“Do you want a chance to earn my trust?” Snoke’s voice is honeyed sweet, almost sultry. “Here it is. I’m giving you the opportunity to run away with the girl you love so much. I want to hear her try and convince you. And I want you to crawl back to me like the squirming sack of shit you are, do you understand me?” He forces Kylo to nod with a hand in his hair.

“Now go stand in front of her!” Snoke releases his grip, and after a brief moment of struggle, Ben rises shakily to his feet.

  
“Speak, child!” Snoke orders her. “Tell him you love him. Promise him all he can have in your arms.” Rey’s eyes snap back to the desk. The Senator is nearly rocking in his seat with glee. It sends another tendril of doubt through her. She concentrates as hard as she can on helping him.

  
“Listen to me, Ben. It’s Rey.” Her mind strays to Leia’s photographs. She might have a plan.

  
Rey takes his chin in two fingers, angling his head down to look at her.

  
“I missed you so bad.” Words can’t say enough. For Rey, this is the bond that ultimately justifies her fractile, nightmarish past. She shuts her eyes to avoid Ben’s blank expression.With no discernible response from him, Snoke seems to grow in strength.

“Come back,” she begs.

  
It’s a plea for her family, as much as it is for the one who’s left.

  
In Rey’s mind, the image of her father appears against a backdrop of shimmering blue sky. His robes cast the wind behind him nobly. He looks both old and young. It is a vision strong with the power that she knows to be love.

It's the only memory to ever come back so perfect. She knows it's by the grace of something bigger.

  
Rey’s eyes fly open with resolve. She has to smash the alt-right into such disparate pieces that it will never again rear its head to destroy her world.

  
“Everything faded in my memory but you.” Rey swallows. “You were right. I had to kill the past to survive. My parents are never going to live again. But I know you still can. I just need you to meet me halfway. Please.”

  
For a moment, Rey feels an ancient heaviness fall over her, whispering that even she must fail against the darkness of hate.

  
“You’ve had your fun,” Snoke says. “Now get over here, boy.” Ben obeys, stepping away from her side. His chin quivers under her fingers.

  
The distance between them grows again. Gently she lets go.

  
“Okay, you do what you have to do,” she whispers. Snoke breaks out in derisive laughter behind the desk. “I love you, Jacen,” she says at last.

It’s the goodbye she wishes they had twenty years ago. It will have to keep.

  
“Come!” Snoke bellows. There's a pause in which no one breathes.

  
“No,” Ben says finally. “Not anymore. I quit. I'm leaving.” His voice is a breath of a sound. 

  
Snoke’s mouth hangs agape. Then Ben’s eyes are on hers, searching for injury, and relief floods Rey’s chest.

  
“Join me?” she asks him, holding out a hand. Together they walk from the dark office.

  
**** Saturday, November 11th, 5:18pm

  
“I don’t know. I’m trying not to crowd him.” Rey holds the receiver closer to her face, catching at the static on Skywalker’s end. “Reception’s awful, where are you?”

  
“Nowhere far. Has he eaten yet?”

  
“Yeah, little bit. He didn’t have anything in the fridge, so I ordered Indian.”

  
“Isn’t it nice to be able to do that?” Luc asks, and she nods. Sometimes they feel so physically connected that Rey forgets she’s on the phone.

  
“Yeah,” she vocalizes. “Takes some getting used to. Anyways, he had about two bites before he had to run and throw up.” Luc whistles, though there’s no mirth in the sound.

  
“What was Snoke doing to him? It sounds like he’s been through some kind of Jedi mind torture.”

  
“You’re not far off. When I got to Snoke’s office...it was bad. He might need some time to start feeling like himself again.” Rey reminds herself to speak. “But he’s not alone. And neither are you.”

  
“I know. Thank you for that, dear.” The line crackles. “Look, I’ll let you go now. Gatorade will help until he can do more rice. You still have my key?”

  
“I picked it up from Finn this afternoon.”

  
“Just checking. Love you, sweetheart.” Rey’s chest flutters, unbidden.

  
“Love you, too,” she tries, and it sticks. “See you soon.”

  
**** Saturday, November 11th, 9:12pm

  
He wakes softly. The room is dark but for her laptop’s telltale glow. She shuts the lid, stretching her legs. The pink afghan falls to the floor.

  
“You feeling okay?” Rey asks.

  
“Better,” Ben answers. He’s slow to acclimate.

  
“Good,” she says softly. “Drink.” Ben takes the Gatorade and drains it. With blue-stained lips, he attempts a watery smile. Rey cringes.

  
“You know you don’t have to act cheerful right now. You can just be,” she whispers.

  
“Oh, thank god,” he says, and lets out an ungodly growl that startles the hairs on Rey’s neck. “I’ve been holding that in for months.”

  
A giggle pries its way out of her, and Rey moves to the edge of the bed.

  
“So you’re Jacen,” she says. It’s not a question.

  
“You heard Leia say it once when you were two and it stuck. It was only you who called me that.” Ben snorts. “No one else was dumb enough to even try. Do you remember anything else?”

Clearly now he's searching, she can tell by the look in his eyes of scrunched desire. 

  
“Just my birthday, the last one.” Rey’s been separated from the pain of it for so long that it hits her hard. “Right before Dad died.”

  
“Do you remember what I told you that day?” Rey looks away, busies herself smoothing the duvet over his legs. “You do. Say it,” Ben breathes.

  
“You promised you would be strong enough to protect me when we got older.” Rey looks up. “And you are.”

  
“Not today I wasn’t.” Ben frowns. “I failed you again.”

  
“Today we protected each other,” Rey brushes the hair from his eyes, “And asshole? You only failed by choosing to believe Snoke over me.”

  
“It was too good to be true,” Ben answers eventually. Rey marvels at what she can see of his face in the darkness. “I didn't think you were ever coming back. You were too grown up and beautiful.”

  
“Please,” she says, oddly embarrassed. “We live together. You know I’m not like that.”

  
“That’s what you’re like to me. Even though you smoke.”

  
Rey sighs. “Seriously?”

  
“We live together,” he parrots back, smiling.

  
“Well. It’s law school. They’re lucky I don’t bring a flask to work.”

  
“Mom does,” he says lowly. “And so did yours.”

  
“Really?”

  
“Yeah. She showed it to me one time. Because it had French engraved on it.” Rey’s heart soars.

  
“Do you know what it said?”

  
“No one is as deaf as the one who does not want to listen,” Kylo recites. “Which also accurately reflects the reasons why she drank.”

  
“Was she a big drinker?” Rey knows there won’t be time between them for every question she has about her mother. She limits herself to what’s really important.

“Not really. She liked white wine.”

  
“What did she sound like?”

  
“Nothing like you. Quiet.” She slaps his leg. “What? She got talked at by a lot of pissed off people. But you could tell she was smart.”

  
“I know. Smart enough to die first.”

  
“Rey,” Kylo says gently. “Don’t be mad at her. It wasn’t a choice.”

  
“I just can't understand why they didn’t do something.”

  
“They tried. You came to live with us for a while, but it wasn’t like they could gun down the federal government. They had jobs to do to protect others.”

  
“I lived with Han and Leia?” Rey asks.

  
“You lived with me and the nanny,” he smiles. “But we had a lot of fun.”

“What was I like back then?”

  
“A piece of work. You stole a whole litter of kittens and hid them under your bed.” Kylo looks practically gleeful with remembering. “But you were curious. Everything was a challenge. You were good at fixing things. I thought you’d be a pilot or an engineer until you started hosting pretend model UNs.”

  
“I did?” Rey can’t recall ever being so innocent.

  
“Yeah,” Ben cringes. “You always made me Russia.”

  
“That’s because you’re scary,” Rey laughs. “But I love you anyway,” she adds hesitantly.

  
“I love you so much,” Kylo admits. “Maybe too much to be good for you.”

  
“No such thing,” Rey says in response, and that's how they end up hugging.

  
They fall asleep in the early hours of the morning like that, side by side on the bed.

  
**** Tuesday, November 14th, 4:15pm

  
“We’re gonna be late,” Rey objects.

  
“What was that?” Kylo asks jokingly from between her legs.

  
“Alright, but make it quick,” she sighs. His hand is already working the jeans from Rey’s thighs.

  
He grasps a fistful of her shirt and dives in. Rey crackles with the pure sin of it.

  
“Right there,” she manages to say through the screeching in her head. Kylo’s tongue makes pliant waves against her, his eyes earnest and reading into her expression of helpless pleasure.

  
They continue, locked like that, as Rey goes through several periods of breathless agony. Her face is scrunched in concentration, holding on as hard as she can to the relaxation she has. Not wanting to tense and let go before she’s altogether been satisfied.

  
“That’s good,” she breathes at last. “Come up here and fuck me, would you?” Kylo practically tears himself from her, damp to his chin. His eyes gleam with enjoyment.

“Hurry,” Rey says, as he struggles to ram a condom on.

  
“I think we should film this.” He laughs as they angle together on the mattress.

  
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Rey grimaces, but the thought is consuming. She imagines being laid bare to him in front of any eyes, and it courses through her like a physical shot to the gut.

  
“You like that?” he asks sweetly, unsuspecting, and Rey can only nod in affirmation.

  
“I like this,” she whispers, grabbing him to her, and they fall silent.

  
Legs around his shoulders, she feels as though every breath is just between them. Her forehead finds his until they are matched at the seams.

  
Rey feels the release when he comes. When he keeps going for her, she can’t help but do the same. It’s like spiraling down a pit of white hot darkness. She loses her vision for a moment and only rights herself at the sound of her name.

  
“Reyna,” Kylo hisses happily, “I thought you were so worried about being late.”

  
**** Tuesday, November 14th, 5:02pm

  
“Calm down, baby.”

  
“I am calm,” Finn says, clutching his cigarette. “This is just weird for me.”

  
“Imagine how weird it is for Organa,” Poe replies.

  
“No, she saw it coming. Apparently they were friends as kids. Before Rey went to Arizona. Some childhood sweetheart type thing. So her and Solo knew the whole time that they had some weird thing for each other.”

  
“Man,” Poe whistles. “Him?”

  
“I mean,” Finn says between drags, “He did inherit his father's dashing good looks.”

  
“Oh fuck you,” Poe responds, but pulls him into a messy kiss. “Why don’t you use that as a talking point.”

  
“Cause I’ve already got my script. There’s some good stuff in there. Stock prices. The weather.” They watch the door of the building. The wait is making Poe itch for a drink.

  
“Please act normal,” he sighs. “And put that out before he sees.”

  
On cue Rey walks through the door. She’s wearing her oldest and most beaten-in jeans, hair in a gather at the top of her head. Kylo follows close behind her, dressed for the weather in a black peacoat. The adoration in his eyes is bright.

  
They’re both smiling like idiots as they approach.

  
“Well, damn,” Finn mutters. “She did _something_ to him, that’s for sure.”

  
Rey strides faster towards them, getting there before Kylo. “Hi, guys!” she says warmly, face flushed. “Sorry we took forever. Someone had to do his hair.”

  
Both Finn and Poe brace for the aftermath of Rey’s words.

  
“Oh, really,” Kylo says good-naturedly as he joins them. “Is that what held us up?” Against all experience, Rey blushes.

  
“Ben,” she hisses under her breath. Finn shoots a glance at his own boyfriend. This is shaping up to be a different kind of interesting than what they were prepared for.

“Alright,” Poe says, “Where we headed? Last chance.”

  
“Nowhere close to campus,” Kylo says immediately.

  
“Oh that’s right,” Rey smirks. “I forgot to tell you guys. The General has a date tonight.” Poe laughs out loud in surprise. Kylo pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t know,” Rey continues for his benefit. “Something about having their son back really brings a couple together.”

  
“We had lunch at Applebee’s,” Kylo complains. “And they left holding hands. What’s so romantic about Applebee’s?” he asks Rey.

  
“It’s the two for twenty,” Poe commiserates. "Everyone loves a bargain."

  
“I guess Solo and I just weren’t meant to be. Like ships in the night,” Finn sighs, lighting another cigarette. Before anyone can object he passes it to Rey.

  
This time Poe can’t stifle his groan.

  
“I told you,” she says to Kylo. “We’re the normal ones.”

 

***THE END***

**Author's Note:**

> I direct you to better fic:
> 
> Interstellar Transmissions by LovelyThings and riccariot  
> Epithumia by pontmercy44  
> Before the Saber Swings by WaterlilyRose  
> In My Bloodstream by EllieCarina
> 
> The moniker "Jacen" in the story is a reference to Jacen Solo of the EU verse, whose story was the first incarnation of the Kylo Ren arc we see in the new trilogy.


End file.
